Mrs. March, in a burgundy dress with even more stiffened petticoats beneath her skirts, was waiting for her downstairs, her shoulders back and her face rigid with disapproval. “Miss Greentree,” she said. “Did you invite this street urchin into Mr. Tremaine’s home?”
“Her name is Rosie, Mrs. March, and she’s not a street urchin.”
“She certainly isn’t the sort of child I am accustomed to having in my house.”
“But this isn’t your house, is it, Mrs. March?”
Her expression faltered, the frigid wall slipped, and for a moment Francesca saw pure rage. A moment later the housekeeper lowered her eyes, hiding her emotion, although the skin on either side of her mouth whitened.
“The master trusts me to run his house as I see fit. I am used to having my orders obeyed.” She looked up, and her eyes had a shine to them that might have been spite, or triumph, as she played her final card. “Your uncle will take my side, Miss Greentree, you can be certain of that.”
Francesca knew, with a hollow, sick feeling, that she was right. Uncle William, so terrified of scandal and so proud of his good name, wouldn’t abide someone like Rosie in his house. Especially when it was explained to him that his niece had virtually kidnapped her from outside a child brothel. It would be yet another fault to lay at Amy’s door, and Francesca knew she couldn’t allow her mother to shoulder the blame for something she hadn’t done, as she would to protect her daughter.
Francesca had no choice. She’d have to ba
ck down if she was to save Rosie and Amy. And that was the most important thing, wasn’t it? Mrs. March could crow all she liked, as long as Rosie was safe.
“I’ll have to tell him, I’m afraid,” the housekeeper was saying, pleased with herself, making the most of her power. “The master will have to know. He’ll insist on it.”
“Mrs. March, please wait…” Francesca summoned up a winning smile. “There’s no need to mention this to my uncle. I understand your concern completely, and I will arrange for Rosie to go elsewhere.”
Mrs. March hesitated. “I don’t like to keep secrets from the master.”
“Yes, but on this occasion I’m sure you’d agree that it’s for my uncle’s own good. You know how upset he gets, Mrs. March.”
Her cold eyes gleamed with malice. “I know how upset he would be with you, Miss Greentree, for bringing a guttersnipe into his house.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Francesca said levelly, while her blood came to a boil. “But he’d be angry with you, too. My uncle will think you have failed in your duty by allowing the child into his house in the first place.”
She glared. “You smuggled her in without my knowledge!”
“Yes, Mrs. March, but the master will see it differently. He’s a very exacting person, isn’t he? He’ll think that you should have been aware of who was coming and going in his house at a time when it should have been locked up nice and tight.”
She caught the flicker of doubt in Mrs. March’s eyes. “Very well,” she said icily. But as Francesca went to turn away, the housekeeper called her back. “You needn’t worry yourself about finding somewhere to take the child. I’ll see her to the orphanage or the workhouse.”
Such offhand cruelty was almost too much for Francesca—she felt her self-righteous fury begin to bubble over and knew in a moment it would scald everything in sight—but she knew she had to bite her tongue. For Amy’s sake.
“No, Mrs. March, I’ll take care of Rosie. Thank you all the same.”
Mrs. March looked as if she’d like to argue the point, but all she said, grudgingly, was, “Very well.”
Lil, when she was told, was furious. “The workhouse!”
“Yes, Lil, but you can understand her point of view. Not about Rosie. About Uncle William. He’d be horrified if he found out about her, throw a fit, and Mrs. March would get some of the blame—and she knows it.”
“You won’t send her to the workhouse?” Lil whispered, glancing over to where Rosie was playing by the window.
“No,” Francesca reassured her instantly, “of course not. I’ll think of something…” She bit her lip. What was she going to do? Even though Francesca knew Amy would stand by her in the event of an Uncle William rant, she couldn’t ask it of her. Not when things were already so tense between them. But neither was she prepared to let Rosie be taken to one of those places. Some people might do that, say it was just too hard, and wipe their hands of her, but Francesca wasn’t one of them.
There must be someone who could help…?
A name occurred to her, but it seemed so unlikely, so impossible that she tried to dismiss it from her mind. But it kept returning and wouldn’t be dismissed. She tried to consider it calmly, even though she hardly dared to contemplate such a thing. Had she anything to lose by asking…apart from a promise she’d made to herself many years ago?
“There is one person,” she said, trying it out aloud. “Aphrodite.”
“But miss…!”
“Remember how you were saying, last night, that the past never really goes away? That it’s always there, inside you? Well, you were right, Lil. I swore that I would never have anything to do with my mother, but now I’m going to ask for her help. I suppose it will serve me right when she laughs in my face and turns me from her door.”